Guardian Report Misses the Real Child Abuse

The images grow no less shocking with time — a gaping wound on a tiny skull, the hair matted with blood; a gunshot that pierced the skin of a small torso and went straight toward the kidney; and finally, the broken neck and severed penis of a 13-year-old boy, his mangled body contorted on a plastic sheet.

This isn’t, however, a story from Israel but the shocking example of what is happening to Syrian children being tortured and murdered by the Assad regime.

Meanwhile, in Israel, The Guardian runs a special report on the alleged mistreatment of Palestinian children detained by the Israeli military. With the report is an 11 minute video which includes footage of an interrogation. A Palestinian child cries, not as a result of torture but because he is going to miss some school exams.

By opening this critique with the emotive and disturbing description of a dead child, we could be accused of being deliberately manipulative. Just like The Guardian’s Harriet Sherwood who also set the scene in a similar fashion:

The room is barely wider than the thin, dirty mattress that covers the floor. Behind a low concrete wall is a squat toilet, the stench from which has no escape in the windowless room. The rough concrete walls deter idle leaning; the constant overhead light inhibits sleep. The delivery of food through a low slit in the door is the only way of marking time, dividing day from night.

This is Cell 36, deep within Al Jalame prison in northern Israel. It is one of a handful of cells where Palestinian children are locked in solitary confinement for days or even weeks. One 16-year-old claimed that he had been kept in Cell 36 for 65 days.

It is an ugly scene for an equally ugly story that paints Israel as a serial abuser of Palestinian children. The real child abuse in reality, however, is that caused by Palestinian society and media that glorifies terrorists, suicide bombers and “martyrs”, encouraging Palestinian youth to follow the same path.

A vulnerable child is easy pickings for recruitment by terrorist organizations. In recent years the most predominant activities characterizing involvement of minors were involvement in suicide bomb attacks, Molotov cocktail throwing, stone throwing and stabbing. Minors have also been involved in grenade throwing, use of explosives, shooting, car bombs, transfer of weapons, kidnapping, rocket launching, as well as assault and murder.

And while it suits Palestinian propaganda to promote the image of children armed with stones facing Israeli armor, the reality is that stones can kill. As recently as September 2011, Asher Palmer and his infant son Yonatan were killed after the vehicle he was driving overturned as a result of Palestinian rock throwing.

The Israeli response: Unpublished by The Guardian

There are often complaints that Israel does not react in a timely manner to address allegations such as those made by The Guardian. While Israeli Government spokesman Mark Regev does appear in The Guardian’s video along with a token paragraph in the main article, most of the Israeli Security Agency’s (ISA) response went unpublished as Harriet Sherwood picked out only a few quotes.

Here, for the record, we are including the response from the ISA that was sent to The Guardian before its article was published. In it, the ISA states:

The claims that Palestinian minors were subject to interrogation techniques that include beatings, prolonged periods in handcuffs, threats, kicks, verbal abuse, humiliation, isolation and prevention of sleep are utterly baseless.

Those detained for ISA questioning receive the full rights for which they are eligible, in accordance with international treaties of which the State of Israel is a signatory and according to Israeli law, including the right to legal counsel and visits by the Red Cross.

Norman you say a lot that is true. However, it’s the Palestinian people who are the issue, and we started around how they are treated by Israel in their own land. We have to hope people like Abbas can be persuaded to move forward. Look, who would have thought British Tories in Government would be then ones pushing gay marriage even ten years, 5 years back. All this becomes easier when Palestinians know you will be withdrawing, people of hate will start to seem less and less relevant. Every kid arrested and detained and roughed up or worse gives them the oxygen. As for claims about Greater Israel which have surfaced here, as useful as ‘No Jews Here’. Such people also ensure blood and suffering for all. And Jerusalem has been special to Islam for a long time, remember the Crusades?

“Jerusalem is considered a sacred site in Sunni Islamic tradition, along with Mecca and Medina. Islamic tradition holds that previous prophets were associated with the city, and that the Islamic prophet Muhammad visited the city on a nocturnal journey. Due to such significance it was the first Qibla (direction of prayer) for Muslims and the prophet Muhammad designated the Al-Aqsa for pilgrimage.” [Wikipedia] You forget that Islam holds the Jews to be the People of the Book, and that current anti-semitism is far from that tradition. It certainly is not ‘contrived’, that is a stretch too far. No it’s not mentioned in the Quoram. But it is in the Christian Bible – do you accept their claims about Jerusalem? Or that Christian concern for that City is more valid than Islam’s? Why did Islam construct one of it’s holiest Mosques there?

Islam venerates Abraham, so does Christianity, Islam honours Jesus yet sides with Judaism in rejecting his divinity. The latter indeed fails to honour him at all despite many fine things he did say and which clearly derive from a close understanding of what was, after all, his own religion – he was never a Christian, and Islam honours him as Prophet, one of the greatest. The one who will lead Heaven’s forces at the last great battle etc. Alive too, taken up into heaven but didn’t die on the cross etc, unlike Mohammed who did die.

It’s a silly tactic to pursue such claims, it brings us no nearer to Peace. Which, if you believe any of the Judaic-based Faiths, is the greatest duty. Standing before God, one might be asked “You have told me how far the others would not go. How far did you? Far enough to find Peace?” All of you have to answer that to God. Believe me He wants all of you to find that Peace, which can be based only on Trust. Which none of you yet have earned.

I come from the Christian tradition. But who in the three Faiths would disagree with Jesus when he said that for those who harm children, it would be better for them if a millstone were hung around their neck and they were cast in the sea?

Jan, Well yes, if they had accepted the Israeli and American offers of statehood, they would have known that Israel was withdrawing -but they did not accept those offers. There is no reason for you not to accept the Israeli explanation of how their system works regarding children. You do however accept the Guardian’s article even though they have consistently been very anti-Israel and have had to apologize several times for misrepresenting Israel in the past.

The reason why the El Aksa mosque was built on the Temple mount was a result of a split in Islam whereby the Sunnis were barred from entering Mecca or Medina. So they decided to build the mosque in Jerusalem, facing Mecca as a temporary replacement.
Mohammed did designate El Aksa (Meaning ‘Furthest Mosque’) as a place of pilgramage but since the Mosque was built several hundred years after the death of Mohammed, it is doubtful that he was thinking of that mosque or even a place in Jerusalem. His nocturnal visit does not indicate that it was Jerusalem, since Jerusalem is not mentioned anywhere in the Koran.There were numerous mosques built during his lifetime and it can be very reasonably assumed that he meant one of them.

Islam venerates Abraham, they regard him as the first Moslem and therefore according to them, Islam came before Judaism and Christianity. The regard Jesus as a prophet but not the Son of God and believe that it is the greatest sin to even suggest that he was. Some veneration!!!

Of course I agree that Christianity has claims over the Christian holy places in Jerusalem precisely because Jerusalem is mentioned many times in the New Testament. The crusades were a reaction to the Musdlim occupation of Christian religious sites. The only reason why the Muslims were so intent upon protecting Jerusalem was that the Christians claimed ownership of Jerusalem and Islam spitefully wanted to deny Jerusalem to them which is exactly why they want to deny Jerusalem to the Jews!

I would agree would with Jesus when he said that for those who harm children, it would be better for them if a millstone were hung around their neck and they were cast in the sea? Perhaps we should look at those people who send child suicide bombers tto kill themselves and innocent people and those who hide behind children and use them as human shields against the Israeli army.

Jan, what you don’t mention is the offers made by, Ehud Barak in 2000 to Arafat for a Palestinian state on about 95% of the W. Bank and all of Gaza which Arafat rejected.The Clinton offer soon after proposing more land with Barak’s agreement, also rejected and the offer of a Stare by Ehud Olmert to Abbas in 2008 on 98% of the West Bank including land swaps, which was not accepted. Abbas’s excuse was that Olmert was facing legal charges in Israel. Furthermore, Israel withdrew all Israeli citizens (all Jews) who lived in Gaza in 2005. All Israel got in return were thousands of rockets fired at her from Gaza. There is no reason why Jews should not reside in the West Bank or Gaza. Jews reside in all European countries, the US, Britain, Australia etc. Why not the West Bank or Gaza? This is the real Apartheid. Abbas has already stated that no Jew will ever be allowed to reside in a Palestinian State. Jerusalem is not mentioned even one time in the Koran, which mentions Mecca and Medina many times, just not Jerusalem. The holiness of Jerusalem to the Muslims is contrived and not mentioned anywhere in the Muslim religious doctrine.

You speak of the arabs. You might as well say “europeans”. The issues are the State of Israel and its borders and the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination. The views of the arabs are as important as those of the europeans, no more no less. Oh how about the africans too?

In my view, the arabs put their concern for the Palestinians well down the list after their opposition to Israel, and there we can agree. But you can’t wave away the issue of self-determination with talk about standards of living. That really is Afrikaaner. We heard that all the way to the end of apartheid. Which was achieved peacefully.

The politics in Palestine – after decades, are you surprised that they are as they are? Even the most moderate of Palestinians who know you have a right to exist as a nation reject the current status quo.

The territory in which they live is not Greater Israel, the world has decided otherwise. Borders change. God doesn’t interfere, nor should He. It’s for our freewill, Man talking reason with Man. That’s what God asks of us.

In a creative spirit, Jerusalem could become the symbol of an imaginative and peaceful solution. That needs talking through, brick by brick if need be. It also is a holy city of Islam and of Christianity – it would be given the Judaic origins of both faiths. That’s a current reality. The aspirations of Israelis and Palestinians also have to be taken into account on this issue. Over to you and them, land clearance/expulsion etc is not a honest solution.

Leon, there were Jewish semites willing to collaborate with the nazis to get their Promised Land, and who regarded the British as their hateful enemy. Christians have nothing proud to boast in their centuries old litany of libel against the Jews. Maybe excuse the English when they invited the Jews back during the Parliamentary era as the People of the Book. But not too much as anti-semitism was rife in this country. So was anti-Catholicism for that matter.

Islam is going through a crisis it hasn’t yet recognised. Sectarianism may well engulf it, in the guise of nationalisms such as Iran and Saudi Arabia. For my money, if Israel or someone disguised its planes and bombed the crap out of Assad’s forces to aid the Syrian liberation, I’d applaud. The world stands by. Awful.

All the organisations of the Arabs who call themselves “Palestinians” constantly proclaim that even if Israel were to donate more territory to them as far as the 1949 armistice lines (which only the disingenuous claim to be “borders”), they would still not accept Jewish self-determination in the Jewish Land.

The depth of hatred among Westerners is exemplified by the phenomenon that the churches such as the Vatican and Church of England would prefer to see Jerusalem under Islamic rule or any other, so long as it’s not the Jews who control the Jews’ holiest and historically most important city…and this at a time when all over the Islamic world Christians are being murdered or degraded.
It brings to mind the depth of hatred of the nazis, who asserted that the Jews, being Semites, were not human; that didn’t stop the nazis from collaborating with Arabs, who also happen to be Semites. Why? Because both wanted the Jews to disappear.

Today’s secular supporters of the genocidal and politicidal “Palestinian” Arab agenda do so not because they love the Arabs, but because they hate the Jews. Their media are suffused with the same sort of mindset that “Der Sturmer” exhibited and the willing victims of their propaganda blindly parrot all their nonsensical libels.

It is very good that at least some of the fierce Israeli critics “agree” to the rights of Jews to have an independent state if only on a small part of their ancestors land- but that was already agreed on long time ago by the majority of the World represented by the UN. When Israel agreed on the UN partition plan they also de facto agreed on an Arab Palestinian state side by side to Israel! Unfortunately it was the Arabs that de facto did not recognise the Arab Palestinian state together with the Jewish Palestinians state. This “little fact” is the only cause for the conflict, occupation (including Arab), refuges (including Jewish) and casualties. How come this little fact is not discussed and we hear instead only about occupation, refugees, settlements – how about looking at the causes and circumstances that brought this situation? Brushing this aside as being historical=non-relevant is quite silly: Hamas still fights the 1948 war to destroy Israel (maybe with the help of Iran) and so is the so called moderate PLO in the West Bank, just look at their internal propaganda or education books or the symbol on their flags. So maybe those critics of Israel so much dedicated to “peace and justice” will go and talk to the other side to recognise Israel right to exist and to recognise all the misery Arab/Muslim regimes caused, are still causing and probably will cause to their own population in the near future.
In the meantime there is no other solution for the “Palestinians” – if they don’t initiate violence against Israel they can continue living in one of the highest standards of living in the Third World -objectively better than a couple of billion people starving to death or suffering much more oppression from their own government then Israel ever inflicted on them. Often in the REAL World the choice is between Bad and Worse and logical people don’t have much problem to choose between those options.

Israel has a right to exist in its present borders excluding the Occupied Territories. Your mystical destiny is a view not shared by the rest of the world any more than it is Islam’s destiny etc etc. Maybe Israel will end up with negotiated, different borders, but then a Palestinian State for its people has a right also to exist. That is the reason people like me are prepared to use Reason and Truth. Still no answer as to the fate of the Palestinians in Greater Israel? Something to hide? What’s this about Hellenism?

Modern secular anti-Zionists are the heirs to the obsessive drive of Hellenism, Christianity and Islam to eradicate the Jews, whether it be by conversion, physical extermination or assimilation.
That is the reason that they are prepared to use casuistry, sophistry, rationalisation and mendacity in their campaign to deprive the Jews of their national independence.

A study in self-righteous self-pity worthy of the Afrikaaners. Who allowed themselves to be led astray by the fanatical; religious mentors. You have none of these in Israel? Who do not preach equality of women, or arabs for that matter. Either there is equality of there isn’t.

Many countries still harbour anti-semtism. In the UK, in my childhood, even having fought that dreadful war, you could still encounter it. Now mainly, I hope, it’s confined to a very small far-right looney element, but they still get to march. Mainly about Poles and Moslems but the anti-Jewish aspect is there if hidden. Good riddance when the last of their kind are gone.

But many good people here, sympathetic to the cause of a Jewish homeland, are feeling more than uneasy about your direction over the Palestinians. as they want to be known. Still no answer about their future, still consigned to an oblivion you fought to reject for yourselves. It’s simply morally and historically unsustainable. Western ‘do-gooders’ would be happier by far were an honest accommodation reached. Both sides, by giving what is needed will gain so much more than land. If you ask me, that’s what God wants. Shalom.

Zionism is the best thing that’s happened to the Arabs in the last 900 years.
The Zionist enterprise in The Land attracted Arab illegal immigrants in large numbers from all over the Middle East as far away as Sudan.
The Zionists created work and business opportunities for all; the Zionist enterprise taught the ordinary folk democracy, equal rights for women, secular education and modernism.Many of the Arab interlopers, however, not content to live in peace with the Jewish traditional owners/custodians of The Land, allowed themselves to be led astray by their fanatical religious mentors such as the nazi, Haj Amin al Husseini, and made war on the Zionists.

Zionists live as minorities in other nations’ states. It’s no tragedy for a tiny proportion of the Arab nation to live as a minority in the Jewish nation-state, where they have equality, by and large, and were it not for the state of war, their lot would be even better.

Western “do gooders” are utterly disingenuous when they claim to be “struggling” for “the Palestinians.”
What they are “struggling for” is to deprive the Jews of their national independence, identity and history.

Yes, but those LoN determinations have been superceded by later UN determinations. If that were not so, the British would still be expected to carry out their LoN Mandate. Namibia was a LoN mandate, this was superceded by the UN recognition of Namibia. The other inhabitants ofn the West Bank etc also have lived there for a very long period. This claim extending back to your stated period has no more or less legitimacy than, say, the Celts in Britain claiming ownership of the whole of these Islands. No one disputes they have a claim to part of the land.

The antics of Arab states is not the main issue, the right to self-determination of the people living in the Occupied Territories is. Given your stance I cannot see how you morally can deny that claim, to continue to do so risks further generations of bloodshed. I fail to see how that is consistent with Judaism.

If anti-semites trade on supposed Christian, Islamic and Socialist beliefs, they deny that all of these have their roots in the basis of justice and truth that lies at the heart of Judaism. Islam recognises the Jews as the people of the Book, so does Christianity. Also, given that the Palestinians are also a semitic people, I can assure you I have have heard racist, anti-semitic Jews in my time. No prettier than their anti-Jewish nazi colleagues.

What if your claim to all these lands were achieved, mainly by force (so not permitted by the UN Charter). What would happen to the Palestinians? Would they become Israelis? Or expelled if they did not? No one has yet answered me on this in various exchanges on the net.

You cannot label me anti-semitic or as denying the right of Israel to exist as a nation, and as a homeland for the Jewish people as an ethnic grouping. When I see nazis locally I speak against them, I always wish for the sudden appearance of a coachload of the League of Jewish Ex-Servicemen. But if people like me also say the Palestinians deserve their place in the sun, surely you are not surprised. They will continue to flock to leaders such as they have whilst they see no hope. You are prepared to fight for your homeland – at least extend that understanding to them. They have nowhere to go.

The UN, upon its establishment, declared that all the determinations of its predecssor, The League of Nations, remained valid.
Jews have lived in The Land of Israel uninterruptedly since about the second millennium BCE.
They lived there under Ottoman rule; they lived there during World War One.
During and immediately after that war stakeholders in the post-war territorial settlements staked their claims. The international community endorsed the Jewish claim ( just as it endorsed the Czech, Polish etc claims.) This was done because of the recognition that :
1. The only nation for which The Land has ever been a nation-state is the Jewish nation, and
2. Jews lived there and they had a right to national self-determination, and any Jew living in exile had the right to join them.

The Arab leadership initially supported Zionism, but then degenerated into racist chauvinism.
The Arabs were awarded 99.9 % of the territory of the Middle East, but greed and anti- Jewish mentality turned them against legitimate Jewish aspirations.

Opposition to Zionism has its roots in one or more of the following mindsets:

1. the view that Jews must always remain a vulnerable minority in other people’s nation-states.
2. the view that Islam mandates Jewish inferiority.
3 the view that Jewish values, morals and ethics are inconsistent with those of ideologies such as Christianity, communism, socialism etc
4. realpolitik, whose adherents believe that expediency mandates opposition to legitimate Jewish rights and that lies, distortions, libels, discrimination and other base tactics are legitimate weapons against the Jewish nation.

Are you saying there were no Arabs living in that area before 1922? The UN superceded the LoN and it is now where such matters are determined. The UN says Israel has a right to exist, it exists within defined borders, Israel is part of the UN, and in becoming a member it recognised that territorial acquisition by force is not lawful any more, and also that people have a right to self-determination. Don’t just claim that for yourselves. If Israel wants more territory, it has to negotiate. The same applies to the Arab nations. In fact, as things stand, neither party has a case for more territories and Israel has no case to hold onto the occupied territories permanently. Negotiations may require land swap. The Jewish people sought and got their nation, it is recognised internationally. It had to be so, based on the call of justice. But you cannot then deny the Palestinian people their desire and right in this. Neither has to right to deny the other. Arab nations illegally occupying territory is not the same as the Arabs who were living there. Your own Israeli Arabs prove the point. If you claim illegal occupation then they may well point back to your unilateral declaration of independence as illegal. The world doesn’t agree with them. And it doesn’t agree that the Palestinians should be denied their nation state. The Palestinian Authority has had to accept Israel’s right to exist, Egypt has done so.

Some commentators seem to think that being “the good guy” means committing suicide.
Like the Arab despatchers of homicide bombers, these commentators advocate their “remedy” to Israel, but would not dream of using it themselves.

Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip were an integral part of the 1922 League of Nations determination which established the boundaries of the evolving Jewish nation-state. This was international law.

In 1947-48 the Arab world violated that law( and a host of others) by initiating a war of intended extermination against the Jews. In the process the Arabs illegally occupied the abovementioned 3 regions. The resultant armistice lines were not “settled borders” at all.
In 1967 Israel liberated and regained what the Arab world had stolen from it.
Today there is no Arab authority/regime/government that is willing to accept the legitimacy of a Jewish nation-state.

No their lands are not occupied, the borders are decided. I hold no brief for sh*te Arab regimes, may they perish soon as possible. We expect such regimes to be as they are. As for Palestinians supporting Nazis, yes some did. And there were Jewish elements who made treasonous attempts to work with the Nazis. Both on the premise my enemy’s enemy is my friend. In both cases the British. Why we even teamed up with the Soviets. So such arguments do not sway the logic and the concern as to Israel’s action. It’s supposed to be the good guy, we want it to act like it, that’s all. And for Palestinian kids to grow up in a country of their own, at peace. Occupying them won’t bring peace. Putting them in your prisons won’t either.

How about the poor Germans now living in the occupied/liberated Sudeten or Russians in Moldavia or West Timor Indonesians fighting against “occupation” in East Timor? I would guess that people openly supporting the Nazi like the Palestinians in WWII and the Arab street obsession with Nazi propaganda would clearly put them on that side – that is if you have any logical capabilities and try to use them?

You contradict yourself. You admit Israel ‘won’ the land from Jordan/Egypt. Like Hitler ‘won’ Poland. Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Norway, France …. Careful who you keep company with. Your argument is lebensraum – taking land occupied by others for a ‘manifest destiny’. We’ve seen it before. Your history doesn’t permit you to prostitute the truth. Fascism is what it is. Nazism had bogus history behind it. Like Germany, Israel is a democracy at this stage. Germany’s people made a conscious choice which now many of their generation wave away as if they weren’t part of it. Be careful, you can make that mistake, you aren’t excused. Be warned by history, you aren’t excused from making the same mistake, you have to avoid it. Israel has a right to exist. Your vision, as I read it, doesn’t. Your path is one of bloodshed and suffering for all, there are plenty on the other side just like you.

Your “lebensraum” point is interesting and shows the vacuousness of all your arguments. Hitler used “lebensraum” to occupy other nation states! Israel has never done that. There has never been a State of Palestine. If there is EVER such a State, the “Palestinians” should kiss Israel’s “tuchus” for giving it to them after winning it from Jordan/Egypt.

Leon, this is a lebensraum argument. The terms you use are biblical, not related to modern-day realities or history. You may have some politico-religious ambition/dream of restoration. But you don’t say what will happen to the Arabs living in those areas if you get your way. Hitler had a vision, of ‘restoration’. It didn’t have any room for Jews, Slavs etc. The former not at all, the latter as slaves to be worked to death until there were no more.

My ancestry is British/Polish. It’s like saying Poland used to occupy what is now part of the Ukraine and that must be restored. Or the Lithuanian-Polish Commonwealth. Wars were fought, treaties established, borders agreed. People moved naturally. History moves us on. That’s how it done, the less bloodshed and suffering the better.

Wars of liberation are only so if people living in the area feel they have been liberated. The Palestinians (let’s call them that for convenience at least) clearly feel they are occupied by oppressors. Or haven’t we sussed that yet?

Saying Israel liberated the territories has the ring of cant about it. Hitler fought wars, took territory, expelled people, settled German stock – in Poland for example. Did he ‘liberate’ that land? You seem not to have learned a lesson a world war was fought to learn.

Greater Israel has a ring about it I don’t feel comfortable with. You see, I recognise admirable aspects about Israel – democracy, tolerance being two of them. What is happening seems to me to sully that and undermine your very best qualities. God knows the Middle East needs them. Some of us see your national moral fabric being damaged, seriously so.

Getting to grips with injustices committed by your own forces is essential. The Brits need to over Iraq, you do over the Palestinian issue.

Judea,(including Jerusalem), Samaria and the Gaza Strip were liberated by Israel in 1967, having previously been illegally occupied by Arab states which abused the Arab residents of those 3 regions.
Handing these territories over to Arab rule would endanger Israel’s existence , and that is why Israel’s enemies, both Arab and Western,demand this..

No, international law has settled the issue, the matter is one for negotiation, not one-sided giving. Now how do you think the population increased? Israel let them in? Or did they multiply in situ, like most other instances? Israel’s population has increased by this method and immigration. So if Jews can build on land they owned before 1929, where can ‘Palestinians’ build? On land they occupied before a settlement was built illegally? You can’t have it both ways, claim restitution on an historic wrong but deny that to others. Your approach is confused and conveniently selective as to facts and victims, if that’s possible. The Chinatown idea is daft, you know why that is not relevant. These folk and their kind have lived in those occupied territories since historic times, or do we need archeologists to settle the issue? Or are you still trying to falsify history and say they only arrived recently…? Echoes of apartheid-style distortion and falsification if you are. My take is that none of those involved has a clean sheet as to their past actions. It needs some real courage all-round to face up to that fact and to get things moving. What I see sweeping the Arab world is a desire for reform and democracy. no matter how hard its rulers try to oppose it. What do you think has been happening in Syria – celebrating their Leader’s birthday a bit too strongly? Egypt? Libya? The rest? The problem is, those countries will not crumble, or change their stances whilst Israel remains in occupation of those territories, no matter what governments come to power. The problem will NOT fade away. Their wrongs added to yours do not make a right.

I guess that all the facts I’ve presented are OK with you as you couldn’t deny them so all you can say is that they are just “excuses”…OK then let’s see,
“Those territories are” “Israel’s to give” because it won the war-this is the reality and this is how the rest of the World operates (on this planet anyway). But usually the Losing side doesn’t impose so many conditions just to start negotiating a peace agreement with the Winner…strange isn’t it?
The reality is that:
1.There is NO UN Security Council resolution requiring Israel to UNCONDITIONAL redraw from ALL those territories occupied during the wars (which Arab started and should be held responsible for). As far as there is no peace agreement Israel is in charge of the security in those territories -by law, FYI. Forced transfer of populations from those territories is forbidden but it will be very difficult to accuse the Israeli government of forcing Jews into Judea and Samaria or ethnical cleansing of Arabs form there given that their population doubled or tripled since the occupation, isn’t?
2. Jews like any other human being have the right to build houses everywhere they own or bought the land, either recently or long time ago -like in Hebron where they have been massacred and their properties stolen by Arab Palestinians in 1929. It is racism to argue against this principle but some “intelligentsia” manages to do just so…amazing.
“If they belong to anyone they belong to those living there” – you mean the Chinatowns in San Francisco, Sydney or other places belong to China or can declare independence based on an ethnical majority living there for centuries??? I don’t think so.
Israel should do what USA did in the past against the Nazis and Communists –either win the war decisively and get the enemy to “mend their evil ways” and make peace which it will benefit them too, or stand firm as long as necessary, without any concessions, until the enemy crumbles from within. The current Islamo-Fascist movement sweeping the Middle East countries looks very similar to the Communism sweeping Asia, Africa and South America in the 60’-70’–it crumbled to dust in a couple of decades.

The territories are not Israel’s “to give away”. If they belong to anyone they belong to those living there. and that (excluding an illegal settler population) is what the rest of the world calls the Palestinians. All your excuses about colonial powers etc can’t change that, they lived there then and they live there now. You can’t or won’t answer what happens if there is no 2state settlement. There are those in Israel who advocate formal annexation, which won’t be recognised internationally but when has that deterred Israel. You admit ‘land for peace’ is part of the deal, but how much do you think Israel can keep? Palestine is hardly viable in land terms now, it’s territories are divided. So how does further land snatch improve that? More settlements? What will Israel give in exchange to strengthen that viability? Israel would be able to administer as an occupying martial power if its occupation was recognised as being lawful. It isn’t, the issue is withdrawal and ensuring peace and stability, including recognised secure borders and that in turn means Israel’s right to exist. Whether Israel behaves better or worse than anyone else is not relevant, it simply should not be there. So far Israel has managed to come out on top in a conflict. What happens if that does not happen in a future time? Occupied territories? Stone throwing kids? Tit for tat all round? Another cycle? And do you think Israel will remain peaceful within as some religious forces gain strength and challenge the secular nature of much of Israeli society, the very same forces that fuel settlement-building and who advocate territorial acquisition by conquest?

All those additional facts don’t change anything in what I said. Israel declared independence according to UN181 resolution one day before the end of the British Mandate – do you have any proof that this contradicted the international law??!!! Or is this just a part of the One Thousands Arabian Nights – anti Israeli mythology ?
The Palestinian nation like many other Arab and African nations were created by the European Colonial powers. Previously all the non-Arab/Muslim natives nations of the Middle East were invaded and colonised by the followers of Mohammed. Europeans and Americans are constantly reminded about their crimes while the accusers play innocent victims who supposedly never invaded someone else countries, colonised ,destroyed the native cultures, engaged in slave trade, etc.?! The last Muslim Empire (Ottoman) lost the war to the European Empires and received a bit of their “own medicine” which they intended to administrate to Europe if they had won the war. The point is that losing a war (especially if you started it ) does not entitled you to an “innocent victim” status and you should not expect to get back your territories as long as you don’t provide solid evidence that you are not going to try again. Think Germany after the WWII- American troops on the ground making sure no regime sympathetic to the previous one will play on the Germans “feelings of humiliation” losing the war, while demanding the unconditional, immediate ending of the Allies occupation and not recognising the right of a neighbour ally country to live in peace- will gain power again.
Israel should stick to a similar approach as a basis for a peace agreement which will probably involve giving away some of the former Jordanian territories to create a Palestinian state. As far as the “resistance” (i.e. terrorists- targeting civilians) continues Israel is entitled to treat enemy combatants under martial law.
It is also very important also to realise that in the vast majority of the cases, Israel’s actions are much better than the Arab/Palestinians/Muslims and even NATO’s actions. Ignoring this basic fact makes all those anti-Israeli accusations hypocritical and useless. This is exactly the point of this article – for those that didn’t get it yet!

All those additional facts don’t change anything in what I said. The Palestinian nation like many other Arab and African nations were created by the European Colonial powers. Previously all the non-Arab/Muslim natives nations of the Middle East were invaded and colonised by the followers of Mohammed. Europeans and Americans are constantly reminded about their crimes while the accusers play innocent victims who supposedly never invaded someone else countries, colonised ,destroyed the native cultures, engaged in slave trade, etc.?! The last Muslim Empire (Ottoman) lost the war to the European Empires and received a bit of their “own medicine” which they intended to administrate to Europe if they had won the war. The point is that losing a war (especially if you started it ) does not entitled you to an “innocent victim” status and you should not expect to get back your territories as long as you don’t provide solid evidence that you are not going to try again. Think Germany after the WWII- American troops on the ground making sure no regime sympathetic to the previous one will play on the Germans “feelings of humiliation” losing the war, while demanding the unconditional, immediate ending of the Allies occupation and not recognising the right of a neighbour ally country to live in peace- will gain power again.
Israel should stick to a similar approach as a basis for a peace agreement which will probably involve giving away some of the former Jordanian territories to create a Palestinian state. As far as the “resistance” (i.e. terrorists- targeting civilians) continues Israel is entitled to treat enemy combatants under martial law.
It is also very important also to realise that in the vast majority of the cases, Israel’s actions are much better than the Arab/Palestinians/Muslims and even NATO’s actions. Ignoring this basic fact makes all those anti-Israeli accusations hypocritical and useless. This is exactly the point of this article – for those that didn’t get it yet!

The 2 state solution was agreed by the UN, Israel declared independence before it was implemented, and the first Arab-Israel war began. Arabs had lived in that territory for a long long time, to deny it is distortion. It was not uninhabited. Migration occurred within those lands generally as a way of life. As for the artificial creation of countries, that’s most of Africa and some of Asia, Israel included. Jordan emerged out of the Transjordan, “a Hashemite ruled British protectorate in the Southern Levant, included within the British Mandate of Palestine, but having a fully autonomous governing system. In 1946, the Emirate became an independent state in 1946 and in 1951 was officially declared as the the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.” Recognised by the UN. “The British Mandate for Palestine, also known as the Palestine Mandate and the Mandate for Palestine,[1] was a geopolitic polity under British administration, carved out of Ottoman Syria after World War I. The mandate formalised British rule in Palestine, from 1922 until 1948. With the League of Nations’ consent, Britain later subdivided Mandatory Palestine into two administrative areas. The land west of the Jordan River would remain under direct British rule and opened to Jewish settlement, while the land east of the Jordan would be a semi-autonomous region known as Transjordan, under the rule of the Hashemite family from the Hijaz.[2]”

That is how Palestine developed. What is under occupation by Israel is the land east of the Jordan minus the current Jordan. It is not Israel’s, not intended to be for Jewish settlement, and you have neglected to answer my question: if not 2 states (not Israel’s “offer” by the way) then what? Back to Jordan. Israeli annexation (unlawful)? What then of the INHABITANTS (if you object to the term ‘Palestinian’) now living there? Citizenship? Expulsion? Answer that.

Your “claiming there” has the ring of apartheid-style apology, that’s what the Boers claimed about the Blacks of the Cape, I read it in apartheid-era propaganda for the South African government. A denial of history to suit a racist state in that case.

I said Jews, Christians and Arabs lived together well enough for the most part. There were indeed appalling episodes but things generally leveled out. And who says dispossessed Jews cannot be included in a proper settlement. That would be just. Would some want the right of return, to live equally in a Palestinian state? That must be considered. Or migration to a final-border Israel? Or financial compensation but staying where there are now? Justice must be for all.

“Admission of wrongs”. Well not my choice for achieving peace, unless it’s on the Truth and Reconciliation basis which means all taking part to examine the truth in order to reconcile. No Israeli wrongs …..? “Beat your breasts, Arabs, we did nothing wrong” …. Which is where this discussion started. Palestinian children in Israeli jails.

Sometime the accusations against Israel comes from people that seem to know what they are talking about…but actually they don’t:
1. “When Israel was created, there was no international agreement ahead of the declaration as to what exactly constituted the State of Israel, it took matters into its own hands…”
- Yes there was definitely an agreement and an UN resolution which the Arab side clearly infringed when they “ took matters into their own hands” – Iraq and other countries without common borders sent troops against the Jews and Tel-Aviv was bombed by the Egyptian air-force – any problems with those facts?
2. “Israel’s creation in 1948 intruded such reality into that area, and has made it necessary to complete the identification of land in such national terms.”
- Wrong again, long before the creation of Israel- the colonial powers artificially created/invented most of the Arab/Muslim states and nation including Jordan which they created by subdivided an arbitrary area called “Palestine” without the international approval. Jews were excluded from living in Jordan while at the same time Arabs continued migrating and settling in the remaining “Palestine” – now claiming to had lived there for centuries. Any problem with those facts? Do you have also a problem with all the other invented Arab states and nations?
3. “Tolerance of Christian and Jews in the Arab World…”you mean the blood libels (Damascus 1832), pogroms (Hebron 1929, etc.) and ethnical cleansing (Iraq, Egypt, etc) of Jews living in the Middle East – for millennia before the Arab/Muslim invasion!? Can Jews and Christian visit Mecca ? Which countries have still de-facto slavery and Apartheid?
There are many other specious arguments that need to be cleared before a rational discussion about what is the best way to solve this conflict but I am sure that any peace solution should be based on the Arab side admission of its wrongs and any compensation agreements should include the rights of the dispossessed Jews of the Middle East. This is REAL JUSTICE!!!!

I’m 67. The rest of the world recognises ‘Palestinian’, even Israel as a state does. There is nothing in 242 which says, for example, that Israel may allow its citizens to build settlements in what even Israel terms ‘occupied territories’. There is no precedent for this, no authority. Building them does nothing to promote a final agreement, it creates the basis for conflict, which it has. Israel is not entitled to tell the UN that a 2 state solution is dead. In any case, what if there is no 2 state solution, what is left? Israel annexes the land? So what becomes of the ‘Palestinians’? Or you just continue occupation and creeping de facto annexation? You must answer that – do you see this as a matter of expulsion, integration …. what??? When Israel was created, there was no international agreement ahead of the declaration as to what exactly constituted the State of Israel, it took matters into its own hands. Should not the Palestinians have exactly that right? Israel claimed the right to create a state and to defend its territory. This is not allowed to the Palestinians through resistance to occupation? I’d say you’re lucky it’s only stones they have access to most of the time. If Israel was occupied, you’d be the first to preach resistance, quite rightly. Israel pre-existed in historical times, but always the same territory? If the Palestinians are not worthy of their own nation, who then ARE they? Arabs? Well, Brits are Europeans but I bet they’d be sore if they were told they were the responsibility of Europeans if a power occupied their land. I guess too they might resist, rock-throwing for a start. I can argue the Palestinians primarily are a semitic people. Studies shown that in DNA terms the people of Israel have more in common with the Palestinians and the Italians than anyone else – harks back to Roman connection in the latter. Basically tribal, divisions were religious but tolerated over a long period when semitic Christians, Jews and Moslems lived side-by-side for the most part peacefully. These semitic people have occupied these lands for centuries when nation states meant nothing. We live in a nation-state era often based on ethnic, cultural and language commonalities, Israel’s creation in 1948 intruded such reality into that area, and has made it necessary to complete the identification of land in such national terms. Jordan in fact has best title to that land, it says it cedes that to a Palestinian homeland. Jordan recognised it had two populations, and the 1967 war meant that the division into modern-day Jordan and the area where the Palestinians live (ie their Homeland) became the reality. Jordan recognises that, but, you may know this, have they formally ceded that territory to ANYONE? Guess what, certainly NOT to Israel. 242 will give the Palestinians their homeland, Israel its security, but land exchange, for security and/or other land, is a major issue. The settlements cannot be advanced as automatic gains, some may have to go, and as compensation, some Israeli territory may have to be ceded. Is there any appetite for any of this in Israel? No? Then expect worse to come, and it surely will.

Just 2 points and then I am done with this:
I have no idea how old you are but I am 66 and I can tell you one thing: NOONE WAS CALLED A “PALESTINIAN” BEFORE ARAFAT INVENTED THE TERM AFTER THE 1967 WAR ! There has NEVER EVER been a Palestinian state, with a flag, currency, army, borders etc ! So don’t give me this BS that it is PALESTINIAN LAND.

Resolution 242 stated what I said . It did not require Israel to stop occupying the conquered JORDANIAN lands until there was a deal on ” SECURE AND RECOGNIZED BOUNDARIES”, WHICH TO THIS DAY the new claimants (after Jordan gave up the territories as you admit), the “PALESTINIANS”, HAVE REFUSED TO AGREE TO.

Your statement that “the UN has recgnized the territory as that of the Palestinians” gives the LIE to your argument ! Pray what “territory” has been recognised by the UN as Palestinian ? You cannot answer that because the UN itself cannot do so. It is clearly NOT all the pre-1967 areas (Resolution 242 above)… so what is it ? To this day, there are on-going discussions as to what “territory” should be given to the Palestinians to create – for the FIRST TIME IN THEIR HISTORY- a State of their own !!!

The 2 State solution of 1948 was REJECTED by the Arab States ( not the “Palestinians” who did NOT exist as a State or other recognized entity in any shape or form) and so Israel is entitled to tell the Arabs that the 2 State solution is dead. Bye-bye !
However, since Israel does not want to be stuck with so many Arabs (it already has 20-25% of its population of Arabs and BTW how many Arab Sates have that % of Jews ???), Israel is even now – after the Arabs had rejected the 2 -State solution for 40 years or so in the hope of DESTROYING Israel – willing to help the Palestinians get a State of their own on the basis of Resolution 242. They should be grateful for that instead of throwing rocks.

They are Palestinians without the “”. Israel even recognises that. So if they are not the legitimate occupants of the territory, who are they? It is a nonsense. Most of that land belongs to them, and who says that in losing some areas, they would not gain others? If that is the case, calling people Israeli now living in such areas would be an error? 242 is based on the Charter principle of non-acquisition of territory by armed force. Occupations end. and all agree there will have to be agreement as to final borders. That still does not make any part of the current territories part of Israel nor does it justify prolonged and continued occupation. The UN has recognised the territory as that of the Palestinians, even Israel recognises the Palestinian Authority. Authority of what? Why and how has Israel negotiated with this Authority? No other state recognises Israel’s occupation as de jure, rather it is de facto. The Palestinians are throwing rocks because they are under occupation. I am not alleging their children’s mistreatment in Israeli jails, many of them are, and the general consensus is that this is happening. If Israel is in the middle of a battle for opinion, advancing specious arguments is not helpful. The Boers used to argue that the black people reached the Cape same time as they did to justify a historical basis for apartheid. Israel’s apologists need to avoid that kind of distortion of history. You neglect that Israel was founded within the framework of a 2 state solution, agreed at the UN. Israel’s pre-emptive Declaration of Independence did not change that. We all know the Arab states have not played a constructive role in this also, but surely Israel’s own interests dictate that the ending of over 60 years of non-independence for the Palestinians needs to happen. If any nation has a claim to the territories it is Jordan to a large extent, but they have ceded that claim to the Palestinians.

Your argument is that since the Palestinian rock-throwers are on their own land, they are justified in their violent action and jailing them is “abuse”. ( You are not alleging that they are mistreated in jail, I think, although being in jail is never pleasant.)
I disagree. The correct name of the West Bank and Gaza is : Legally Occupied Territories. UN Resolution 242 required Israel to withdraw ot “secure and recognized boundaries”, NOT total withdrawal. That is expressly clear not only from the wording but the Security Council discussions on the issue. The US stood by Israel and opposed a resolution to withdraw to the 1967 (indefensible) borders.
Thus, it is up to the various protagonists to agree on what the new borders will be. Despite numerous offers of a settlement ( including under Pres. Clinton where HE stated that Arafat had missed a great opportunity for peace and a State), the “Palestinians” have refused to agree on “secure and recognized boundaries”. Hence, the occupation continues. And it is LEGAL because it arose from a war of aggression against Israel. Even the UN did not condemn Israel for its pre-emptive air strike AFTER Egypt and Jordan had mobilised.
Conclusion: the Palestinians are not throwing rocks at Israeli troops who are occupying their lands BECAUSE until a settlement is reached, it is NOT theirs.

It seems to me this blog is meant only for those who have a single uncritical viewpoint, that Israel does no (real) harm. That is not Honest Reporting it is Apologia, Hackdom, propaganda, it is not Honest, honest. Do you deny Israel has Palestinian kids in its jails? That they committed their ‘offences’ in non-Israeli territory? That they are not Israeli citizens? That some of them have been abused? Just answer straight, none of your going-round-the-houses to justify Israel. IS Palestine (West Bank, Gaza if you will) part of Israel? None of this “experts have said” crap, yes or no. If you say ‘yes’ that makes you a supporter of aggression to acquire territory. I am quite sure borders may need to be negotiated etc but I say ‘negotiated’. What Israel is practicing is ‘occupation’ and thereby is oppression. Never mind Syria, we know what they are. What are YOU? The Rule of Law or of the Fist?

I said “abuse is abuse”. Courts of law see it that way. The severity of offence will vary. No one equates Syria and Israel as to degree. But you don’t want to admit that Palestinian kids ARE abused in your jails. They throw rocks at Israeli troops who are in Palestinian territory, it’s not Israeli land. If anyone should jail them it’s their own authority. But if Israeli troops weren’t where they have no right to be, guess what? It wouldn’t be happening. There is also the right of a people to resist occupation. Even your state calls the territories “Occupied”. That begs who owns them, and it ain’t Israel and, putting national ownership apart, Israel has no right to impose its rule on non-Israelis. If Israel were to annexe the territories, what would the Palestinians become? Israeli? Or would they be expelled? The people of Poland had the right to resist the nazis, and kids no doubt threw rocks at them if they could. What happened if they were caught? At the least incarceration in jails run by Germans, doubtless torture, maybe worse. The Germans had that right to be where they were and to do what they did? Stop claiming special privileges for Israel. We’ve seen special privileges before, it ended at Nuremburg. Why is Israel different, any more than Germany had some historic and mystical right? I never said there should not be a Jewish state, it’s an ethnic issue to some degree, and is recognised as such globally. An islamic state is not ethnic. But maybe ask some of Israel’s citizens about the encroaching power of extremist Jewish sects and see if they are all that happy. What’s the difference between such men in Israel trying to chase women off the street, increasingly violent, and the Taliban doing the same where they have sway? A matter of degree, the fact both are objectionable is true. I object to the Iranian regime, it hangs teen aged boys for being allegedly gay, it persecutes opponents, it discriminates against women, its own Arab population etc etc. Likewise the Saudi regime. Oh and the Syrian, very much so. But to do that doesn’t make me less critical of Israel where it is in the wrong. My enemy’s enemy is NOT my friend. If a friend is truly a friend, then he’ll not hold back telling his friend the truth when it’s vital

To Jay Cosgrove ( Mr.). “Si duo facient idem, non est idem !” The fact that “children” are jailed for acts of violence ( YES, rock throwing is violent) and kept in jail in Israel is not the same as what Syria does to its children who violate the law. So stop trying to equate Israeli “abuse” with Syrian because that is just plain disingenuous. Gaoling kids for crimes is not abuse ! Gaoliing and torturing and killing them for non-violent demonstartions IS abuse !
There cannot be friendship between the sides while one preaches HATE to its children.
Golda Meir said it best: if the “Palestinians” laid down their arms, there would be peace: if the Israelis did, there would be a massacre ! Only when the Arabs finally accept Israel’s right to exist in peace and security as a Jewish State will there be a chance for peace.
BTW, many of you leftists even try to call it racist that Israel wants to be a Jewish State, while you dare not object to all the Arab Republics being Islamic Republics ! You bloody hypocrites.

Abuse is abuse. It’s all rotten apples, maybe different varieties, but all rotten with abuse. Israel has tortured kids, and in any case it has no right to hold them. They are not Israelis nor do they live in Israel. Who cares what Prof Stone wrote, the international community does not recognise Israel’s right to occupy those lands, it has declared there should be a Palestinian state (just as it did about Israel’s right to exist), and 242 expressly forbids appropriation of territory by force as does the UN Charter, maybe its most essential rule. They ARE Palestinians, it’s as offensive as if one used the term “so-called Israelis”. No, Jordan and Egypt lost a war to Israel, they did not ‘abandon’ as if they just wandered off and forgot about it. Jordan and Egypt recognise the territories in question now as the Palestinian homeland, the basis for their state. Occupation is not irrelevant to the issue at hand, Israel takes children from the territories (which it calls Occupied) and incarcerates them in Israeli jails. Assad takes Syrian kids and jails them in his own jails. This tautology to justify Israel’s actions again does it no favours. It cannot be ‘Honest Reporting’ if you ignore what your own side is doing wrong even before you point fingers elsewhere. I have not noticed The Guardian going soft on what Assad is doing. Why should they excuse Israel? They don’t let up on UK failure in its jails. What a day it would be for the President of Israel, invited as a friend, stood proudly as the Palestinian flag was raised to celebrate its statehood, two semitic peoples side-by-side, working together. This is not the route. I am a Mr.

The term “abuse” is usede by the writer for both Israeli and Syrian actions. But she’s comparing apples and oranges. The Israeli “abuse” cannot be compared in degree or nature to what Syria is doing to its young revolutionaries, who are TORTURED (in a real sense of the word) and KILLED, in may instances. Trying to deflect this point, she then digresses to the question of the right of occupation – irrelevant to the issue at hand.
BTW, many learned law professors (including the late Prof. Julius Stone in Uni of Sydney) have written learned treatises as to why the occupation is LEGAL. Amongst those factors are : the rules of war; U.N. resolution 242; the non-existence of a “Palestinian State” ever in the history of the world; the fact that the territories were basically abandoned by Egypt (Gaza) and Jordan (West Bank); no flag, currency, borders etc etc.to prove the right to the lands by the so-called Palestinians. The “Palestinian State” is an Arafat creation of a legitimacy never aspired to by these people before Israel in effect tore them (liberated them ?) from previous “occupiers” .Funny they never claimed a State before 1967 !

1. denying there is abuse against Palestinian kids in its jails (where they shouldn’t be anyway)
2. resorting to “Syria does worse” (any donkey knows that)
3. ranting against The Guardian for being allegedly anti-semitic when that is simply not the case – querying Israel’s actions as a state is not that any more than to query Iran is anti-islamic. Or is The Guardian both? No doubt it’s also anti-christian …. Maybe it’s got a thing about monotheistic religion emanating from the Middle East ….

Israel in supposed to be superior to Syria, in most things surely it is. But not in this matter. Put it right, soon, as you should, and then the world will see that you have done it.

Real child abuse in Israel, real child abuse in Syria (and more of it). The issue is Israel should not be controlling Palestine in any way, yet it is. Until the parties agree to peace, real peace, and whilst Israel occupies land it has no right to (and continues to allow settlement building) what do you expect? Thanks? Praise? The issue re Syria is when will the world stop permitting governments to slaughter their own people under the excuse of national sovereignty? Assad has no claim to be leader of Syria. Israel has no claim to Palestine.

Your extensive coverage in today’s Guardian concerning the alleged treatment of children alleged to have thrown stones at Israeli soldiers and others makes very disturbing reading. As you will know, it is not a new story and one must wonder why it warranted front page as well as considerable coverage within at this time. The alleged treatment would be disturbing from whatever source and I presume that you consider Israeli morality to be such as to make this especially worrying, even though instances of child neglect and cruelty may go unreported in many other regions.

I want to suggest that the story below this message to you is one that deserves prominent coverage too. It is heartening and refreshing and certainly shows Israel in a different light. I could offer you many more stories that do that too, including the work of Israel’s ambulance service which treats all as equal, sometimes putting the lives of Israelis second to others who may urgently need treatment.

I can also introduce you to some amazing stories emanating from Haifa where the Leo Baeck Institute is able to integrate young Jews and non-Jews in some remarkable ways.

And a story about the world wide work of ‘Save a Child’s Heart’ would make a good read – let me know and I will produce it with all payments going directly to that unique charity!

If you wish to live up to your name and be a Guardian of truth and fairness, I hope you will find this and other stories sufficiently worth while to publish.

Jerusalem (CNN) — Aya Abu Mouwais, a 3-year-old who lives in the West Bank, can barely walk or talk because of a failing kidney and liver. For much of her life, the Palestinian child has needed dialysis to survive.

Thankfully, an Israeli man has been able to help her get the treatment she so desperately requires.

More than 500 times in the past two years, Yuval Roth and his volunteers have driven Aya and her mother roundtrip from a checkpoint near the West Bank border to Rambam Medical Centre, which is an hour away in Haifa, Israel.

“What Yuval has done, no one else has done,” said Aya’s mother, Suhair. “He is day by day helping us to get her to the hospital. I’m not allowed to drive an Israeli car, so if not for Yuval, we wouldn’t be able to transport her. I thank him.”

Leaving the West Bank is the only way Aya’s family can get dialysis. For one thing, medical facilities are limited in the territory.

“In the Palestinian Authority, it’s very expensive to get health care, and most of the people cannot afford it,” Roth said.

It’s also expensive to make the trip to Israeli hospitals. Although the Palestinian Authority allows sick children and adults to leave the West Bank for treatment, Palestinians are not allowed to drive past the checkpoints. To get to Israeli hospitals, they’d have to take a taxi, which would cost at least $90 each way.

Fortunately, there is Roth and his organization, Derech Hachlama (“On the Road to Recovery”). Since 2006, Roth and his team of volunteers have been giving Palestinians a lifeline.

“The volunteers are driving at least five days a week,” said Roth, a 55-year-old carpenter and professional juggler from Pardes Hanna, Israel. “Some (drive) in the morning to drop off patients, and others come in the evening to take them back. That makes the whole thing easy, since they can still go to work and don’t have to spend the whole day.”

The price of the conflict is a lot more than the price of making peace.
–CNN Hero Yuval Roth
For Roth, the transportation service is a way to recover from personal tragedy. In 1993, his brother Udi was kidnapped and killed by members of Hamas. After his loss, Roth found a way to channel his anger into peace.

“I heard an interview on Israeli radio with a man who lost his son in the same way that I lost my brother,” Roth said. “After the interview, I called him … and he said he had an idea to establish a group to encourage dialogue between bereaved families from both sides, Israelis and Palestinians.”

Roth joined the group, called Parents Circle – Families Forum, and befriended many Palestinians. All shared a surprisingly common need: transportation access to Israeli health-care facilities.

“One day, (a program participant) called and told me his brother might have a brain tumour. He had an appointment at Rambam hospital but no way to go,” Roth said. “He asked if I could drive him, and I agreed it would be no problem.”

That first call for help was more than four years ago. As word of Roth’s generosity spread, transportation demands grew, and Roth began to recruit his friends as driver-volunteers.

Today, Roth’s group has grown to 200 volunteers. Transport coordination efforts are run entirely by Roth, who spends many hours on his cell phone inquiring about the location of volunteers and Palestinian families. Each volunteer maintains his or her own vehicle, but Roth helps cover gasoline costs with donation money he has received.

Even though differences exist, including some language barriers, Roth believes that the program helps Israelis and Palestinians learn from and respect each other.

“When we are coming to pick up the sick kids, the (Palestinian and Israeli) checkpoint managers help us a lot,” Roth said. “It makes our life and their life a lot easier. I think Palestinian families trust me also because I’m coming as one of them. I feel like they are my family or my friends.”

Roth’s group has driven an estimated 90,000 kilometers (about 55,000 miles) in 2010 alone. He says they have helped hundreds of Palestinians get access to health care.

“I lost my brother, but I didn’t lose my head,” Roth said. “This activity gives me an essence for life. I have learned the price of the conflict is a lot more than the price of making peace. We are all human beings.”

I suppose one must continue trying to complain to the Guardian for their constant anti Israel articles however nothing will ever alter the fact that an Anti Semite is an Anti Semite and nothing you say or any proof you give will ever cahnge their mind or attitude

Sir, I wrote 2 decades ago to the Jerusalem Post suggesting the “Singapore Solution”. Any publication that is critical of Singapore must give the right of full response to a represenataive of the Singapore government, failing which that publiction is banned from sales there until such time as it prints a response (and apologizes for the delay in such printing.) The Wall Street Journal was banned for a while under that rule.
BAN the Guardian. Let them then publish that fact and make Israel look “undemocratic”.
THEN, Israel can reply in all the OTHER papers to explain the ban. That will in fact provide Israel with an opportunity for an even wider circulation for its response and show a wider public how unfair the Guardian is. Anyone got a better idea ? It works for Singapore !!

My favorite British blogger, Norman Geras (normblog.typepad.com), a self-described Marxian socialist but also an uncompromising democrat, says, “I won’t buy the Guardian any more, not even a single copy _ though I do read it online, free, mostly for blogging material.” I believe he once called the paper a “moral swamp.”

You might also note that the ‘moderate’ Haniyeh who “lives modestly locally in Gaza”, as reported by Sandra Osborne MP, has only very, very recently been living in Gaza having escaped in fear, the blood-letting in Syria, where he has resided in splendor in Damascus all these years.

Harriet Sherwood: Here we go again. Another unknown journalist wishes for international recognision like her fellow journalists writing for The Guardian where she will end up in the bins of lies and distortion.
I wonder if she has ever bee to the Holy Land and seen for herself any part of her Christianity heritage and with all her distortions she would still be allowed to visit there. So far all journalists who write untruths whether they work for the guardian or other members of the anti JEWISH media have ended up in utter oblivion and the Oscar of distortions and lies.
I again challenge these distorters to go and see Israel if they have the GUTS and check their essays of lies they are given by Hamas and the PA.

The Guardian is a newspaper most people in the English speaking world scoff at, especially those who have visited Israel and who have friends and family members in the IDF. The Guardian should stick to knitting things of wool as they keep on spinning and spinning and spinning. Garbage journalism at its best when it comes to reportage of Israel.

Israel is faced with unrelenting war on many fronts: armed attacks by Islamists who would kill every Jew on Earth, diplomatic pressures from “friends” and foes alike, the BDS/academic battalions of the left, and, perhaps most pernicious, media allied with the most illiberal, murderous, and repressive political forces on the planet. The Guardian wages war against Israel on a daily basis, clearly seeing itself not as an impartial reporter of news, but as a combatant supporting its allies. That anyone could believe one single word printed in that poisonous rag is astounding. It long ago lost all credibility.

So who buys that paper, who consumes its noxious fare? Only those who share its vile tenets; Guardian readers have self-selected themselves as uncivilised barbarians, lusting for blood, more specifically, Jewish blood. It’s time that all civilised people boycott the Guardian completely – not just the paper and web site, not just its advertisers, but also, and most importantly, its readers. If you know any people who buy or read the Guardian, deny them the comforts of their illusion that they are still part of the civilised world, and let them know what you are doing, and why – withdraw of all social contact with any who support their vicious anti-Semitism. They don’t merely see the world from a different moral or political perspective – they are evil themselves, as evil as the stormtroppers, party members, and de facto supporters who swept Hitler to power. We must none of us countenance such evil by anyone, in any form.

when anything comes from the guardian it has no credibility
and when letters are always being signed by useful idiots it has even less credibility.
fortunately the papers circul;ation is limited to useeful ididots !